A new study from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom finds that brain cholesterol is associated with the developing of Alzheimer’s disease.

With the help of in vitro modeling in the laboratory, the scientists were able to see that cholesterol sped up the aggregation of amyloid beta molecules by 20. At the present moment, the build-up of amyloid beta proteins is believed to be crucial in developing the Alzheimer’s disease.

Lead researcher Michele Vendruscolo says: “The question for us now is not how to eliminate cholesterol from the brain, but about how to control cholesterol’s role in Alzheimer’s disease through the regulation of its interaction with amyloid beta.”

A new study from the United Kingdom shows a link between the loss of dopamine-firing cells in the brain and ability of the brain to form new memories. These findings may lead to a new method for diagnosing Alzheimer’s.

For the study, a team of researchers used a type of MRI scan which is called 3Tesla. It is twice stronger than standard MRI. They scanned the brains of 51 healthy adults, 30 patients with a mild cognitive impairment, and 29 with the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Having analyzed the results of the scanning, the researchers concluded that there was a link between the size of two key brain areas – the ventral tegmental and hippocampus – and the ability of the patients to learn new information.

Lead study author Annalena Venneri, of the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, explains: “The hippocampus is associated with forming new memories, therefore these findings are crucial to the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. The results point at a change which happens very early on, which might trigger Alzheimer’s disease.”

A new study from the US suggests that anxiety symptoms might be the early sign of Alzheimer’s disease years before this mental condition become evident.

A team of scientists examined data received from the Harvard Ageing Brain Study, containing information about 270 healthy men and women aged between 62 and 90. None of them had active mental disorders.

Lead researcher Nancy Donovan, a geriatric psychiatrist from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, explains: “Rather than just looking at depression as a total score, we looked at specific symptoms such as anxiety. When compared to other symptoms of depression such as sadness or loss of interest, anxiety symptoms increased over time in those with higher amyloid beta levels in the brain.”

A new research finds that exposure to flickering lights with certain frequency can set the faulty signalling of the brain and energise its immune cells to fight the disease.

For their research, the scientist set mice attacked by the disease in a box illuminated by LED lights flickering precisely at 40 Hz. The neurones of each animal’s visual cortex began humming along at the same frequency.

The scientists gave some of the mice a week of daily sessions in the flickering lights. Compared to the mice who didn’t receive the weeklong light therapy, those that did, had 67% fewer amyloid plaques (the clumps of amyloid protein that appear to gum up the function of a brain under the influence of Alzheimer’s disease).

A new study finds that feeling lonely could be the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease in senior people.

Seniors with high brain levels of amyloid, a type of protein fragment linked to Alzheimer’s, are more likely to feel lonely than people with lower levels of this protein fragments according to the research.

Dr. Nancy Donovan, a lead researcher and a director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, says: “For people who have high levels of amyloid – the people truly at risk for Alzheimer’s – they were 7.5 times more likely to be lonely than non-lonely.”